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Updated: May 4, 2025
The scene of the opera is laid in Brittany, and when the first act opens, the following events are supposed to have transpired. On one of the days set apart by the villagers of Ploermel for a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin, Höel, the goatherd, and Dinorah, his affianced, set out to receive a nuptial benediction.
Besides these were several squires, unknown to fame, and of the new-comers, Sir Robert Knolles, Sir Thomas Percy, Nigel Loring and two other squires, Allington and Parsons. These were the company who gathered in the torch-light round the table of the Seneschal of Ploermel, and kept high revel with joyous hearts because they thought that much honor and noble deeds lay before them.
"Thirty miles from here," said Knolles, "there is, as I am told, a fortalice named Ploermel, and within it is one Bambro', an Englishman, with a good garrison. No great distance from him is the Castle of Josselin where dwells Robert of Beaumanoir with a great following of Bretons.
"He came with a safe-guard from our brothers in the Midi; his life is sacred to you; he may be captured, but it must be living not a hair of his head must be touched." "Very good, general," replied the Chouans. "And now, my friends, remember that you are the sons of those thirty Bretons who fought the thirty British between Ploermel and Josselin, ten leagues from here, and conquered them."
The triumphs of his rival at last brought Philip VI. into Brittany. While Edward laboriously pursued the siege of Vannes, amidst the hardships of a wet and stormy winter, Philip watched his enemy from Ploermel, a few miles to the north. For a third time the situation of Buironfosse and Tournai was renewed.
It turned and rushed through them again, leaving five others helpless beneath its hoofs. No need to do more! Already Beaumanoir and his companions were inside the circle, the prostrate men were helpless, and Josselin had won. That night a train of crestfallen archers, bearing many a prostrate figure, marched sadly into Ploermel Castle.
It needs but one more deed, and sickerly when I am hale once more it will not be long ere I seek it out. Till then, if my eyes may not rest upon you, my heart at least is ever at thy feet." So he wrote from his sick-room in the Castle of Ploermel late in the summer, but yet another summer had come before his crushed head had mended and his wasted limbs had gained their strength once more.
To this opera followed "L'Ètoile du Nord," and "Le Pardon de Ploermel," while to these will soon follow "L'Africaine," so long promised, and in behalf of which the composer was visiting Paris at the time of his death. The score of the opera has been completed since 1860. On Friday, the twenty-second of April last, Meyerbeer dined alone at his residence, his meal being, as usual, very frugal.
"L'Étoile du Nord" was given to the public February 16, 1854. Up to this time the opera of "Robert" had been sung three hundred and thirty-three times, "Les Huguenots" two hundred and twenty-two, and "Le Prophète" a hundred and twelve. The "Pardon de Ploërmel," also known as "Dinorah," was offered to the world of Paris April 4, 1859.
Ploermel was at that time the center of British power in Mid-Brittany, as Hennebon was in the West, and it was held by a garrison of five hundred men under an old soldier, Richard of Bambro', a rugged Northumbrian, trained in that great school of warriors, the border wars.
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